The Mandalorian’s Mythosaur and Star Wars significance, defined

There’s a way of foreboding within the opening of The Mandalorian episode 3. “Did you see something alive?” Bo-Katan Kryze (Katee Sackhoff) asks Din Djarin within the depths of Mandalore. He doesn’t know what she means, however we do.

The Mandalorian season 3 is simply three episodes in, but the Disney Plus present has already dropped some main shoutouts to Star Wars lore. Of those, one of many greatest arrived final week in episode 2, “Chapter 18: The Mines of Mandalore,” when Bo-Katan got here eye-to-eye with a Mythosaur — a legendary creature by no means earlier than seen on display.

It’s sufficient to get a die-hard Star Wars fan’s pulse racing; nevertheless, informal viewers most likely have just a few questions. These queries will vary from the essential (What’s a Mythosaur?) to the decidedly extra concerned (Why are these gigantic beasties such a giant deal?) — fortunately, we are able to reply all of them.

The information covers the whole lot it’s good to learn about Mythosaurs, together with their biology and ties to Mandalorian society. It additionally touches on the Mythosaurs’ earlier appearances in Star Wars canon and rounds up each reference to them in The Mandalorian thus far.

What’s a Mythosaur?

As their identify suggests, Mythosaurs are fabled beasts of huge measurement. They’re coated in darkish yellow scales and have thick, hornlike tusks protruding from both aspect of their mouths. Whereas the Mythosaur glimpsed in episode 2 selected the Residing Waters of Mandalore as its lair, the species itself is amphibious and due to this fact equally completely happy on land or underwater.

Based on legend, Mandalore the Nice fought a Mythosaur and one way or the other defeated it. He then tamed the beast and rode it into battle (as you do); different historical Mandalorian warriors quickly adopted his lead. Sadly, the Mandalorians’ wonderful, monster-mounted heyday didn’t final, and the Mythosaurs had been thought-about extinct lengthy earlier than the occasions of The Mandalorian.

Mythosaurs had a long-lasting affect on Mandalorian tradition, although. Notably, Mandalore’s cranium signet — the royal seal of the complete planet, mainly — was impressed by the Mythosaur legend. The cranium signet is such a powerful a part of the Mandalorians’ shared identification that it crops up in every single place, however particularly of their clothes (there’s one on the shoulder pad of Boba Fett’s Mandalorian armor, for instance).

Mandalorian society’s veneration for Mythosaurs isn’t purely aesthetic, both — it’s mystical. The creatures are central to a prophecy concerning the destiny of Mandalore and its folks, however extra on that later.

Have Mythosaurs appeared in different Star Wars tales?

Picture: Lucasfilm

Regardless of their significance to Mandalorian historical past and tradition, Mythosaurs don’t really present up in Star Wars tales all that always. Certainly, “Chapter 18: The Mines of Mandalore” was the primary time one of many camera-shy creatures appeared on display. Previous to this transient cameo, Mythosaur sightings had been restricted to licensed media — most of which was produced earlier than Disney hit the reset button on the saga’s “Expanded Universe” of books, video video games, cartoons, and comics.

Memorably, Marvel’s basic Star Wars comedian e book collection launched a duplicate Mythosaur skeleton constructed as a colossal theme park attraction (significantly). Different, oblique references to genuine members of the species are current in different sources, most of them tied to the saga’s distant previous, as depicted within the Tales of the Jedi comics and the Knights of the Previous Republic video games they impressed.

As we stated earlier, little (if any) of this materials remains to be a part of official canon. After Disney acquired Lucasfilm in 2012, the latter introduced it was relegating just about the whole lot aside from the Star Wars movies and the Clone Wars animated collection to apocryphal “Legends” standing. The upshot of this? Nearly the whole lot we beforehand knew about Mythosaurs didn’t imply squat.

The cranium signet’s presence in canon films and TV exhibits meant these quasi-kaiju most likely nonetheless existed on this new, streamlined galaxy far, far-off (a truth later confirmed by way of a licensed journal). However their historical past and significance, and even what they regarded like, was now up within the air.

How does the Mythosaur tie into The Mandalorian?

Picture: Lucasfilm

Luckily for sci-fi monster fans, each The Mandalorian and its spinoff collection, The Guide of Boba Fett, have slowly stuffed in a number of gaps in revised mythosaur lore. The creatures’ presence is felt proper from the leap, as they’re referenced in dialogue in The Mandalorian’s first-ever installment, “Chapter 1: The Mandalorian.” On this episode, Din Djarin’s (Pedro Pascal) newfound ally Kuiil (Misty Rosas, voiced by Nick Nolte) name-drops “the good Mythosaur” and confirms that the traditional Mandalorians used the creatures as their trusty steeds in post-Disney canon, too.

Issues go quiet on the Mythosaur entrance for the rest of The Mandalorian season 1 and all of season 2 (Boba Fett’s armor however); nevertheless, The Guide of Boba Fett quickly brings them again into the highlight. The spinoff’s fifth episode, “Chapter 5: Return of the Mandalorian,” features a scene by which Din Djarin’s mentor, the Armorer (Emily Swallow), recollects how “songs of eons previous foretold of the Mythosaur rising as much as herald a brand new age of Mandalore.”

This sparked hypothesis that The Mandalorian creator Jon Favreau and government producer Dave Filoni had been sowing the seeds for a Mythosaur unboxing social gathering in season 3. As we now know, that was certainly the case, and a Mythosaur (or one in every of its peepers, no less than) made its debut within the third season’s second episode. The outsized beast (justifiably) scares the residing shit out of Bo-Katan earlier than she jetpacks away — though, curiously, it doesn’t lash out at her or the incapacitated Din.

Why the Mythosaur doesn’t assault is a thriller for now, however what does appear clear is that it’s going to play a significant function in what’s left of The Mandalorian season 3. Will Din, Bo-Katan, or some other Mandalorian warriors saddle up on the Mythosaur’s again? Are there any extra Mythosaurs on the market, both within the mines of Mandalore or elsewhere within the Star Wars universe? And can they usher in a contemporary begin for Mandalorian society, as beforehand foretold? Solely time (and The Mandalorian season 3’s 5 remaining episodes) will inform.